How close to the bleeding edge is necessary?

Time is always against us ... so the way that I spend my time is very important - or so I think.  For a developer who learns stuff in his/her spare time that they don't get to used day to day at work ... at what point is the switch from the current production environment (released software) to non production (alpha or beta software) most valuable?  My current question really has to do with beta 1 or beta 2.  Currently I spend my spare time learning .Net 1.1 better (theoretically this could help me if needed TODAY), but I have been wondering if I should start putting some time aside for investigating beta 1 (I do have it on a VPC, but have spent very very little time with it). 

Usually I am a beta 2 person.  When the books start coming out for the “Go live” functionality, is when I make the switch (plus I am not a consultant - so any time I put into learning something that may change .. may be a waste of my time) ...

Any thoughts or arguments against my approach?

posted on Saturday, February 19, 2005 7:41 AM

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# re: How close to the bleeding edge is necessary?

it depends on the quality of the alpha / beta. i've certainly spent alot of time with great alphas and then had them disappear (e.g. HailStorm). and some great betas have turned into great products (VS.NET). as far as Whidbey B1, i dont think the beta is as high of quality as previous VS.NET betas. so i've rolled back to 1.1 and am waiting for B2. at least what you learn for 1.1 will transition to 2.0. but the named status really doesnt matter, because there are certainly released products that i consider to be beta quality :(
2/19/2005 8:15 AM | casey chesnut

# re: How close to the bleeding edge is necessary?

I learned .net at b1. thanks for that. By the time it went in production it was all about useless except for what I learned about c# itself. If you don't have a ton of time to spend, I'd wait for final beta to put a lot of effort into it, and just keep to the basics until then.
2/19/2005 1:48 PM | Scott C. Reynolds

# re: How close to the bleeding edge is necessary?

Personally I do little more than read about the new features, I will worry about the exact details when the technology is there and ready to be used in production. I know some people think they will be ahead of the pack by starting early, but in my opinion that is just high hopes, real experience and learning comes from using the tools at hand solving real issues faced in a production system, not fafing around with toy projects.

Know whats on the horizon, even play with it but do not become consumed by it, that is my approach. But who knows???? In my case I do not even know if the next thing I am involved in will even be .NET, it might be C++ or even Java.
2/20/2005 3:39 AM | Chris Taylor

# re: How close to the bleeding edge is necessary?

Scott: You have a good point about learning the basics with beta 1. Like right now with C# 2.0 beta 1 it has the new stuff that probably won't change. That I could already start to learn (more than just know it is there from the msdn articles).

Chrs: I agree with you. For me there is not a lot of value in non production code other than the learning experience only (which is worth something but can also be gotten in other ways like cross technology - java and .net)
2/20/2005 3:50 AM | Jason Haley

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